Adelaide Railway Station

Adelaide Railway Station is a beautiful building, with a long history. Yesterday I visited it and took a few photos around the station.

Originally built around the 1920's (an earlier original railway building was demolished to build this station), it originally had all the Adelaide metro, country South Australia and Interstate railway lines running from this station. It was a very busy place.

Since the SA Government sold off the rights to the interstate passenger and freight railway operations to the federal government (Australian National) in the 1980's, interstate services moved to a separate railway station in keswick (these days called the Adelaide Parklands Terminal), and these services were reduced dramatically to run only The Ghan (Alice Springs/Darwin), Indian Pacific (Perth, Sydney) and The Overland (Melbourne) interstate train services today. (All other SA country rail services were stopped for economic reasons)

Reflecting this change, Adelaide Railway Station emptied the top floors as staff moved to the other location and the cessation of SA country rail services, and ultimately the top floors became what is now the Adelaide Casino. The main station entrance hall is still intact, as is the platforms (heavily modified and reduced in number from it's heyday). Indeed, the platforms are now underground, allowing for the construction of the Riverside building and Convention Centre which sit over the top of the platforms today.

There used to be a train servicing facility next to the Adelaide Railway Station, but this was demolished and relocated to a brand new Dry Creek facility in Adelaide's north, to make way for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and medical research facility now under construction. Even more buildings are planned in that area in the coming years!

As North Terrace is a busy main thoroughfare, a subway walkway tunnel exists underneath North Terrace to allow passengers to enter/exit the station on the other side of North Terrace. This entrance is shown below inside the Roma Mitchell House Building:

Here are the escalators leading down to the subway walkway to the station:

Here is the view looking up toward the entrance to the subway. This section was renovated earlier this year and looks much better than it did:

Moving along the subway walkway under North Terrace heading towards the station:

As you enter the Adelaide Railway Station, you see a beautiful entrance hall, with the recently installed escalators making life easier for passengers wanting to exit the station on this side of North Terrace to catch the tram into the city centre:

Station Kiosk is located at the entry to the subway:

Below is the Adelaide Metro card recharge and card issuing machines in the station. In Adelaide we now use a Adelaide Metro IC card which you tap next to the reader on board a train, tram or bus to validate. You recharge the card with money using one of these terminals:

Originally there used to be ticket windows here - how times have changed. Here is the Adelaide Metro card:

You can also enter the Adelaide Railway Station via a long ramp entrance from North Terrace:

As you come down the ramp you get a simple display showing the railway line schedule. Because the Noarlunga line, Tonsley line and Belair line were closed having maintenance work done this weekend (installing the new electrical cables for the new electric trains), they are not shown here:

Once in the station, it really opens up and looks stunning:

You can see the main entrance hall looking towards North Terrace, with the entrance to the platforms through the gates on the right of the photo:

Zooming in on the railway line schedule screens, clearly showing when the next train is due to depart,  and which platform to go to:

View of the entrance hall towards North Terrace entrance:

Heading towards the Riverbank (Torrens) side of the entrance hall we can see a beautiful wooden Kiosk and clock (just out of shot on the left is the station Info Centre):

Moving further along we can see some very large memorial displays for South Australian Railway workers killed in action fighting for Australia in World War I and World War II:

Next to this, in a sign of the times, empty shelves exist where public telephones used to be located in the entrance hall. Now that pretty much everyone has a mobile phone, public telephones just aren't used much these days and have been removed completely. Honestly I can't remember the last time I used one - it was a very long time ago:

Moving to the other side of the entrance hall, I found a surprise - a display of old photographs showing the history of trains and railways in Adelaide! I had to check this out:

The next photo really interested me, showing a huge number of trams in Grenfell street. So different to the scene today, where Grenfell Street is filled with buses instead of trams...

Next to this display was another war time memorial to South Australian Railway workers killed in action:

Beyond this was another display (I was so surprised by how many displays are here) of old railway memorabilia, from Adelaide Metro, Railway Museum and the Ghan (amongst others):

Zooming in we can see some of the displays:

Dinner Food menu options on an SAR journey:

Next was some Ghan memorabilia - I remember these from when I travelled on the Ghan in the mid 1980's from Adelaide to Alice Springs...must be showing my age since this is historical now!

Stamps and sealing wax presses:

Old tickets that used to be issued in Adelaide Railway Station over the years:

Even some of the old Railway cutlery and glassware is here:

Moving on, there is a simple Xmas display:

There are 2 grand entries like the one below blocked off with no signage (I assume they go to the Casino section of the station):

Finally, there is a board showing founding members and presidents of the Retired Railwayman's Club:

Overall I found the Adelaide Railway Station a fascinating building, with lots of things to look and you can really feel the history of this building, with plenty of reminders everywhere!

Steamranger Steamfest 2013 in Adelaide Hills

Back in May 2013 Steamranger ran it's annual SteamFest event at Mt Barker Station, in the Adelaide Hills.  The highlight was the running of Steam Locomotive 621 from Mt Barker to Bugle Ranges!

Steamranger runs a number of heritage steam trains (and some heritage diesel locomotives) from it's base at Mt Barker Station, all the way down the old Victor Harbor railway line to Victor Harbor. They regularly run Cockle train services from Goolwa to/from Victor Harbor.

So why are they at Mt Barker instead of Adelaide? Well, at one stage they were based in Adelaide (Dry creek Station) running steam train services to Belair, Victor Harbor and stops in between. I never had the chance to do this from Adelaide unfortunately.

However back in 1995 the government of the day converted the dual broad gauge railway lines on the Belair line (which continues on to Melbourne) to a standard gauge line for freight traffic going to Melbourne (and the Overland passenger train to Melbourne) to use the same standard gauge line used elsewhere beyond Adelaide.

One of the two broad gauge lines was retained as broad gauge for the Belair Adelaide Metro line, which now finishes at Belair station. Originally though, the line continued to the Adelaide Hills town of Bridgewater (and Melbourne beyond that), and a branch line split off at Mt Barker Junction to Victor Harbor.

Unfortunately beyond Belair both lines were converted to Standard Gauge, so the split off point was on the line that was converted to standard gauge, which meant that when the conversion work was completed, the Victor Harbor broad gauge branch line was disconnected permanently and isolated from the rest of the broad gauge network in Adelaide.

This meant that Steamranger had to relocate all it's facilities and trains from Dry Creek to Mt Barker, which is where it is based now. You can read all about Steamrangers operations at their website at http://www.steamranger.org.au

So as part of Steamfest 2013, Steamranger open up their workshops (normally closed to the public), so the public can take a look at what they are working to restore. Naturally I took a peek, starting with the train carriages and locos pulled out for public display:

The restored carriages on display looking wonderful:

Inside the workshop you can see (in the distance) an ex Limestone Coast Railway train (used to run from Mount Gambier in South East South Australia for tourist runs) - unfortunately the Limestone Coast service stopped service before I got a chance to ride it. A Steam loco boiler is also being worked on:

Inside one of the restored carriages, used in Steamranger train services:

I then went back to the station to buy my Steamfest ticket to travel on the 621 Steam train ride to Bugle Ranges. Here is the ticket:

It is a short trip, but long enough to get the feeling of traveling in Steam trains of that era.  I grabbed some photos of the train prior to departure:

As an aside I bought a number of the many souvenirs that were on sale at Mt Barker Station for Steamfest, including buying a new mug, train books, DVD's and a wonderful framed photo of the 621 locomotive in action near Victor Harbor!

My seat was a window seat in one of the restored carriages, looking great:

And then we set off. The scenery along the way from the train was great, so I include some photos of that too:

Working our way through Mt Barker:

Winding our way through to Philcox Hill:

Arrived at the site of the former Philcox Hill Station:

Continuing on towards Bugle Ranges. The feeling and sound of a steam train is wonderful, and fills me with excitement!

We arrive at the final destination, the former Bugle Ranges railway station (photo a bit blurry sorry). The railway line continues all the way to Goolwa and Victor Harbor on a trip called the Southern Encounter. I have been on this trip also and I will cover it in a future blog entry!
 

Because there is nowhere at Bugles Ranges to turn around, the train had a heritage diesel engine at the back, which now become the front as we headed back to Mt Barker. Some beautiful scenery could be seen from the train too:

On arrival back at Mt Barker station I quickly ran to the end of the platform to get a photo of the heritage diesel loco before heading home for the day:

Steamfest was a fun day out, and thanks to the Steamranger volunteers for making a great day for all to enjoy. It is recommended for anyone who can to go to Steamfest in 2014 - perhaps I will see you there!